Globalization

As neoliberal policies continue to exacerbate poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation, the films in our globalization collection allow viewers to confront the harsh--and often hidden--conditions faced by those on the losing end of the dominant economic paradigm, as well as a framework for analyzing the forces shaping those conditions. They offer an alternative to the mainstream media coverage, reminding us that a different trajectory is not only possible but imperative.

4 videos in this collection

The Killer Bargain referred to by this hard-hitting documentary's title is the availability of cheap consumer goods, imported by Western companies, whose prices don't reflect the actual human and environmental…

Related videos

The Killer Bargain referred to by this hard-hitting documentary's title is the availability of cheap consumer goods, imported by Western companies, whose prices don't reflect the actual human and environmental costs associated with their production in the developing world. Consumers remain largely unaware of the conditions under which the goods…

In the winter of 2006, the Electrolux Corporation closed the largest refrigerator factory in the U.S. and moved it to Juarez, Mexico, for cheaper labor. The move turned the lives of nearly 3,000 workers in Greenville, Michigan, upside down.
As middle-class Americans find their health and way of life increasingly…

UNNATURAL CAUSES sounds the alarm about the extent of our glaring socio-economic and racial inequities in health and searches for their root causes. But those causes are not what we might expect. While we pour more and more money into drugs, dietary supplements and new medical technologies, UNNATURAL CAUSES crisscrosses…

Why is your street address such a good predictor of your health? Latino and Southeast Asian immigrants like Gwai Boonkeut have been moving into long-neglected urban neighborhoods such as those in Richmond, California, a predominantly Black city in the San Francisco Bay Area. Segregation and lack of access to jobs,…

South Africa has emerged as a free-market economy with an active private sector; however, social and economic inequalities remain deeply ingrained. While the government has made a strong commitment to privatization and to attract foreign investment, South Africa is still challenges by corruption, problems with image and confidence, and poor…

Two billion people worldwide are infected with the TB bacillus, but only 9 million people a year actually get the disease. The story of the Marshall Islands can help us understand why.
The lives and health of Marshall Islanders in the equatorial Pacific were disrupted in a unique fashion when…

The Pima and Tohono O'odham Indians of southern Arizona have arguably the highest diabetes rates in the world - half of all adults are afflicted. But a century ago, diabetes was virtually unknown here. Researchers have poked and prodded the Pima for decades in search of a biological - or…

Recent Mexican immigrants, although poorer, tend to be healthier than the average American. They have lower rates of death, heart disease, cancer, and other illnesses, despite being less educated, earning less and having the stress of adapting to a new country and a new language. In research circles, this is…

The number of infants who die before their first birthday is much higher in the U.S. than in other countries. And, for African Americans, the rate is nearly twice as high than it is for white Americans. Even well-educated Black women have birth outcomes worse than white women who haven't…

What are the connections between healthy bodies, healthy bank accounts and skin colour? Our opening episode travels to Louisville, Kentucky, not to explore whether medical care cures us, but to see why we get sick in the first place, and why patterns of health and illness reflect underlying patterns of…

Carmen Duran works the graveyard shift in one of Tijuana's 800 maquiladoras; she is one of six million women around the world who labor for poverty wages in the factories of transnational corporations. After making television components all night, Carmen comes home to a dirt-floor shack she built out of…

By any standard Argentina was a very rich country until the 1970s, with competitive industries, modern agriculture, and a prosperous middle class. By 2001, 21 out of 36 million people were living below the poverty level, and formerly eradicated diseases such as tuberculosis and leprosy reemerged. MAY JUSTICE BE DONE…